Learning Enablers Manual: For Ages 8 to 14 Years

By Cynthia C. Jones Shoemaker Ph.D.

This book is about the age range from eight years to fourteen years old. It takes the reader from the more inward seven-year-old, to the expansive eight-year-old, and then into the nine-eleven-thirteen-fifteenyear age range that alternates inward and outward, moody and expansive, in the young person. All through these ages, they are learning, and this manual has additional ideas for each age and stage, plus materials for teachers and group leaders. Too much information (TMI) is thrown at these ages about what it means to be a teenager or tweenager. Some handle this information overload and transition period by withdrawing and becoming crabby. However, regardless of social and emotional issues, their learning abilities are still sharp and keen and welcome the more ideas in these manual activities that are sequenced by age level. These enablers only take a few minutes at a time and can boost vocabulary and knowledge categories for young people, especially with the Around the World section.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503562226

Cynthia C. Jones Shoemaker Ph.D.

Dr. Cynthia C. Jones Shoemaker’s years of research and graduate teaching in the fields of child development, early childhood education, family types, ages, and stages helped her include in most of her books the importance of parent involvement and critical thinking skills. These are key in her four Learning Enablers Manuals for different age groups. Her doctorate in human development with a minor in management were enhanced by her thesis work with two hundred children showing that a few minutes, even weekly, with a child, can raise the IQ. She has raised four children and has twelve grandchildren. She is presently chief academic officer and university coordinator at the So. MD Higher Education Center.

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Copyright © 2015 by Cynthia C. Jones Shoemaker, PhD.

ISBN:      eBook            978-1-5035-6222-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 04/21/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

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Contents

Introduction

Flying Cereal

Write Or Draw A Learning Log

How Many Boxes?

Maps And Tv

From Ice To Steam

Animal Math

My Favorite Stories

My Word Bank

Family Food Partner

Plants And Food

Signs Of Winter

Invented Games

Molecules In A Chain

Grocery List Dictation

Multi-Cultural Foods In Food Groups

Cut Up Words

Circle The Dollar

Desert Island Notes

Secret Helper

Playing Store At Home

Shopping For Grandmother

Tell Me Five Reasons Why

Trip Across The Country

Puzzle Paragraphs

List The Verbs

The World As A Cherry Tomato

Two Halves Of An Orange

Latitude And Longitude

Planet Fruit Salad

Make A Family History Scrapbook

Looking At Stamps

Antique Store Visit

New Titles For Historical Markers

Connecting Historical Markers

Invent An Island

Farming In Africa

The Weather Forecast In India

Grades 5 To 6 (10-11 Years)

Recipes On Packages

Car Survey

Geometry At Home

The One Book

Paper Bag Math

Pets For Sale

Mapping Sports

Budget The Menu

Cleaning Up The Environment Begins At Home

Organizing A History Outing

Finding And Giving Directions

Map Your Plan (Or Take Mom On A Trip)

Bargain Hunting

Cooking For Fun

What’s My Line/Job Choices

Get There On Time

Catalog Shopping

Want Ads

Family Economics

My Checking Account

Loans For Cars

Fire Department Volunteer

Balancing A Bank Statement

Map Your History Trip

Learning About Import Trade

Parent Papers Understanding The Seven To Ten Year Old

Parent Papers Understanding The Eleven Year Old

Parent Papers Understanding The Twelve Year Old

Parent Papers Understanding The Thirteen Year Old

Parent Papers Understanding The Fourteen Year Old

Parent Papers Understanding The Fifteen Year Old

World History And World

#1 Early Agriculture And The Middle East

#2 Early Tools And Technology

#3 What Is Money And Why Was It Invented?

#4 What Is A Nomad?

Adult Papers

#5 Inventing Government And Politics In The Middle

#6 River Valley Civilizations: Egypt And The Pyramids

#7 River Valley Civilizations: Northern India (Now Pakistan) And Trading Through The Persian Gulf

#8 River Valley Civilizations China And The Yellow River

#9 A Turning Point In World History

#10 Two Views Of History

Axial Revolution

Adult Papers

#11 Europe’s Geographical Position

#12 Camels Help The World To Grow

#13 The First Cities

#14 Early Rome

#15 Rome: The Center Of The World

#16 The Collapse Of The Ancient World

#17 The Byzantine Empire

#18 China And Rome Get Connected

#19 The European Dark Ages And Charlemagne

The Beginnings Of Modern Europe

#20 Canals In China

#21 The Beginning Of Nations

#22 Nations In The British Isles

#23 What Did Europe Have?

#24 Western Europeans Picked What They Wanted

#25 Dukes, Earls, And Barons: A Form Of Social

#26 Work Was Valuable

#27 The Renaissance, Discovery And Exploration

#28 The Renaissance Scientific Discoveries And The

#29 The Renaissance: Achievements In The Arts

More About: The Renaissance And The Age Of Discovery

#30 Latin America

#31 Australia

ECEA INSTITUTE

Education, Continuing Education, and Administration Institute

Box 396

Marbury, MD 20658

Dear Reader:

Thank you for your order. The ECEA Institute is pleased that these activities will be reaching parents and children. The Feedback Sheet after each section is included for your own use or for a teacher to use.

Enjoy the Manual,

The ECEA Institute

INTRODUCTION

Learning Enabler Parent Involvement

In a review of 28 studies, it was found that in order to maintain the gains children made in educational programs, parent involvement was a must. It was also found that if parents were given specific, curriculum-related activities in a sequence, these gains were maintained the most effectively. The following Learning Enabler (HLE) activities will help you provide just such a service to parents and children, and also will help to ensure that the efforts made at your program to really help children will have a lasting effect.

The following five features were evident in the 28 programs that showed immediate and lasting gains for children due to parent involvement:

1. The importance of the teacher-to-parent instruction phase in building trust.

2. The curricular emphasis in materials used for teaching.

3. The ratio of parent to teacher for instruction in teaching activities (one-to-one was best).

4. The structure (or sequence) of the teaching activities, from easier to harder, was found to be of top importance for the most stable gains.

5. The specificity or detail and definition of the teaching activities.

The Learning Enabler series involves numbers two, four, and five of these features that help guarantee lasting effectiveness. Building trust in one-to-one situations also occurs in most good programs.

The Learning Enablers are an attempt to encourage learning by providing instructional materials in the homes of children to prepare them for later school achievement. This goal is an outgrowth of studies done by Levenstein, which suggested that if mothers were given an attractive, relatively simple tool to help their children learn, these mothers in turn assumed some responsibility for their children’s verbal growth.

A relatively inexpensive form of encouraging parents’ interaction with their own children is weekly, one-page Learning Enabler activities that suggest brief, enjoyable parent-child interactions in the home. Learning then occurs in the reciprocal process between parent and child, which is the heart of this program.

There is obviously a need for bridging the gap between the formalized learning that occurs in educational program settings and the informal learning opportunities that parents can take advantage of at home. If educators need instructional materials, it is reasonable to assume that parents need materials too. Additionally, there seems to be a need to encourage more parent-child interaction and verbal communication.

Learning Enablers

After Home Learning Enabler activities were developed, they were tested weekly by parents and their children who were enrolled in federally funded programs in Maryland. As a result, the parents became actively involved with their children, and returned feedback sheets even in programs that previously did not have a strong parent involvement program. These pages include a complete set of activities for ages eight years through fifteen years old.

The step-by-step Home Learning Enablers are unique in that they utilize household objects as systematic instructional materials. This has proven to be an easy, inexpensive mechanism for involving parents. Although this program was pilot tested in Maryland, it is also being used nationwide and internationally.

A distinct sequence is followed in each activity. First, the name of the activity gives the parent a hint as to the content, and is usually colloquial if at all possible. The Reason section tells the objective or purpose of the activity and provides a line or two of explanation about what the activity teaches. An attempt is made here to be as specific as possible without using educational jargon, long words, or long sentences. Activities have been purposefully written at an eighth-grade (US) reading level.

The Materials Needed section lists needed materials. These lists are meant to suggest items that are simple, inexpensive, and already available in the home. Another unique feature of these Enablers is the Time Needed section, in which the time requirement is always shown clearly; beginning activities, especially, are kept short, about

3 to 10 minutes each. Parents are tired after a day’s work, and children have short attention spans. The activities have been timed, so they are as close in approximation to the time listed as possible.

The How To section gives a simple step-by-step approach to the activity. An effort is made to be brief and clear in this section. The Evaluation section provides the parent with some evaluation information by describing observable signs of the success of the Enabler activity. Finally, the Easier and Harder Ideas section provides ways to adapt the activity by making fairly minor changes. An easier adaptation for younger children is provided in number 1, and a harder adaptation for older or more able children is given in number 2. These ideas also encourage parents and children to creatively adapt Enabler activities. Some activities also have Computer Ideas and Photo Opportunity sections.

Dear Parent:

Did you know that you are your child’s most important teacher? Would you take 5 minutes this week and do the following activity with your child? Please fill in the sheet below with your ideas and comments, then keep it as a record as things done with your child. Thank You

________________ Date: ____________

–––(Tear Off)–––

Feedback Sheet

For:____________Grade: ____________

(Child’s Name)

1. Did you or someone else do the activity with the child?

Me _____ Other _____

2. How many times did you do the activity?

Once _____ More than once _____

3. How much time did the activity take?

_____ 15 minutes or less

_____ 30 minutes or less

_____ More than 30 minutes

4. Did you enjoy this activity with your child?

Yes _____ No _____

5. Do you feel your child understood it?

Yes _____ No _____

6. Do you feel your child needs more help in this area?

Yes _____ No _____

7. Please share any adaptation you may have of this activity, or describe a new activity. (Write on the back, if necessary.)

Thanks for cooperating!

Signature

(Activity name, age or grade, and number)

FLYING CEREAL

Learning Enabler # 1

Second Grade

Thinking Skills – Observing, Comparing, Hypothesizing

REASON: To learn that friction causes static electricity. To learn that static electricity can cause light objects to attract or repel each other.

MATERIALS: Clear plastic cup, plastic spoon, square of plastic wrap, rubber band, scrap of wool material, 7 pieces of dry cereal such as Rice Crispies, Wheaties or puffed rice.

TIME: 5-10 minutes

HOW TO

1. Ask your child to assemble the cereal cup with the cereal inside and the plastic wrap held on over the top by the rubber band.

2. Ask your child to experiment with the wool, spoon and assembled cup to see what he or she can get the cereal to do. (Don’t tell more about it yet).

3. Experiment and talk about any discoveries. Talk about the RUBBING – FRICTION relationship.

4. Ask your child to predict the number of pieces of cereal he or she can get to stick to the plastic wrap when the cup is right side up.

5. Write down predictions and results. Try different kinds of cereal.

AGE: 7

EVALUATION

Does your child enjoy showing his or her experiment to other family members? Asking for and recording their predictions?

EASIER AND HARDER IDEAS

1. A younger child can count out different cereals and practice shaking the cup, and draw a picture of what happened.

2. An older child can experiment with static electricity such as walking across a wool rug in winter and touching a metal object such as a lamp.

COMPUTER IDEA

Make a graph with a spread sheet program comparing the number of pieces of cereal that would stick to the plastic wrap. Include cream of wheat grains, and wheat chex or rice chex for variety in size. Decorate the graph with hand drawings or a computer picture.

WRITE OR DRAW A LEARNING LOG

Learning Enabler # 2

Second Grade

Language Arts, Writing, Reading – Observing, Cause and Effect

REASON: To develop observation, memory, recall and writing skills.

MATERIALS: A notebook of paper and pencils.

TIME: 5-10 minutes

HOW TO

1. Discuss with your child something new he or she learned this week. It can be something from school or from a Learning Enabler.

2. Write Learning Log on the notebook or paper and ask your child to write about what he and she learned. Draw a picture to go with the paragraph.

3. Send the learning log in a letter to grandparents or other relatives. Write more every week or every month. Talk with your child during the week about what he or she will include.

AGE: 7

EVALUATION

Does your child think of one or two things to include in the learning log?

EASIER AND HARDER IDEAS

1. A younger child can draw pictures for their learning log.

2. An older child can write a longer learning log and look up more information to go into it.

COMPUTER IDEA

Write up the Learning Log on a computer program and print it out.

PHOTO OPPORTUNITY

Take a picture of this activity and show it to friends or family.

HOW MANY BOXES?

Learning Enabler # 3

Second Grade

Math, Science – Observing, Estimating, Hypothesizing

REASON: To practice estimating and predicting (or hypothesizing) geometric space and space needed.

MATERIALS: Large cardboard box or